8 months old

Here’s some of the new things that Riley-boy’s up to at 8 months:

• He’s just broken the 20 lb mark so he’s quite heavy to carry in the car seat now. He’s moving up into a forward-facing car seat soon so there’ll be no more lugging 30 lbs up and down his babysitter’s stairs every day.

• He’s starting to “talk”…making repetitive sounds, rather than just squealing and making noise. He carries on the funniest conversations in his bed as he waits for us to come in and get him in the morning.

• He blows raspberries now…quite the accomplished spitter.

  

• He’s been sitting independently now for the past few weeks, and is just starting to show an inclination to crawl. He’ll push himself up on his hands and almost get up on his knees, so of course, I help him up to that position to see what it feels like. (I’m going to regret doing that if he starts crawling before we move on Feb 20) Mainly, he gets around by leaning forward or sideways while sitting up and puts himself on his belly in order to push himself backwards with his hands. He seems to get around using this method and by adding some rolls and twists to his routine.

• I’ve kept the status quo as far as food is concerned. Once I finish my exam and we’ve finished our move next month, I plan to focus more attention on “intermediate spoon feeding” with an elective in “finger foods”.

• His favorite game is dropping / throwing his toys and seeing where they land. J will sit on the futon with Riley and let Riley push his toys off the edge one by one as I’m on the computer and I’ll pick them up so he can do it over and over. It’s fun.

• He still loves his jumper and recently discovered he enjoys being in the “boat” (aka laundry basket) with his toys and play contentedly there. He loves any toy that lights up and makes noise – we need to buy stock in Duracell for all the batteries we need to buy.

• His favorite book is Barnyard Dance, followed by The Foot Book. The rest have failed to hold his attention as of late.

• No stranger anxiety as of yet, he’ll go to anyone and yet will give me a big smile and begin kicking his legs in excitement when I arrive at daycare to pick him up.

Riley was a tired and hungry boy tonight when we got home, but I did get him to smile for one of the shots before he finally melted down at the end:

We love our boy!

Shelby